PhD Opportunity in AI, Operations Management and Omnichannel Retailing emlyon business school in France

PhD Opportunity in AI, Operations Management & Omnichannel Retailing at emlyon business school and INSA Lyon in France.

This fully funded 4-year PhD starts in September 2026 and sits at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Operations Management, and Optimization. The project aims to develop new theoretical and methodological advances for decision-making in modern retail and supply chain systems.

Possible research directions include inventory theory for omnichannel systems, retail network design with endogenous demand, multi-agent AI for supply chain coordination, stochastic and robust optimization, reinforcement learning, decision-focused AI, and sustainable operations.

The opportunity is especially suitable for candidates with strong backgrounds in Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain Management, or related disciplines. The post emphasizes rigorous theoretical contributions through optimization, stochastic modelling, learning theory, or AI-enabled decision-making rather than AI alone.

Applicants should have strong quantitative and analytical skills, programming experience (Python is highly desirable), interest in optimization, machine learning, or data-driven decision-making, excellent written and spoken English, and motivation to conduct high-quality academic research.

The successful candidate will join the QUANT Research Center at emlyon business school and DISP lab at INSA Lyon, with opportunities to publish in leading international journals and work on problems with academic and practical impact.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. To apply or request more information, contact Prof. Yacine Rekik ([email protected]) or Prof. Khaled Hadj-Hamou ([email protected]).